Next steps

You've made your first graph — here's where to go to go deeper.

You now know how to place a node, wire it up, change a value, and see the result. Everything else in DNA builds on those moves. Pick a direction below based on what you want to make next.

Understand what's flowing on the wires

Every wire carries a value, and values come in families — points, geometry, curves, fields, images, Analytic shapes shapes, and more. You rarely have to think about this, but when something surprises you, this is the explanation.

• What flows on the wires — the big picture and the "in-between" matrix.

• Collections — rows of things with attributes, the backbone of most graphs.

• Attributes — how @P, @Cd, @pscale and friends ride along with your data.

• Automatic conversion — why you can wire almost anything into anything.

Get the core ideas

A handful of workflow concepts unlock everything else.

• The graph & cooking — what "cooking" means and why things recompute.

• Context: per-element values — how one value resolves differently per element, per copy, per loop. The thing newcomers trip on.

• Working in 2D and 3D — how a flat shape lives in a 3D scene.

• Loops & feedback — repeating work per element or per frame.

Drive things with values and time

• Keyframing — animate any parameter over time.

• The timeline — play, scrub, loop, and set your frame range.

• Parameter expressions — type = in a field to compute a value from other nodes.

Write a little maths

When a node can't quite do what you want, the Expression language runs a tiny snippet on every element at full speed.

• The Expression language — the Expression node and what it's for.

• Expression cookbook — copy-paste recipes: jitter, colour-by-height, point-at-mouse, waves over time.

Bring it to life and send it out

• Choosing a renderer — turn your scene into a polished image.

• Simulation — particles, cloth, hair, soft and rigid bodies, and fluid.

• Live performance — drive the graph live from MIDI, OSC, a camera, and more.

• Exporting — render to video, images, audio, or a shareable web app.

See also

Key concepts · The interface at a glance · What flows on the wires · Glossary